


Crossed

by warboyziri



Category: An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25690819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warboyziri/pseuds/warboyziri
Summary: Helene and Elias in a twisted world where you get a tattoo of your soulmate's greatest passion, and when you first touch them, the tattoo fills with colour.
Relationships: Helene Aquilla/Elias Veturius, Laia/Keenan
Kudos: 9





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> uploading the first three chapters to see if it's of anyone's interest

People always assume that Helene’s tattoo is a personal choice.

From the moment she got her bonded mark, her mother has been telling her what people will think when they see it. “You’re marrying a soldier, that’s for sure”, she would say, “But if you’re leaving to train with Keris like your Aunt Persephone, then it’s best that you hide it, or the girls over there won’t take you seriously.”

Helene hides her mark in plain sight. She found that she loved the idea of more things on her other than her soul mark – like a raven clutching poppies on her arm, a pirate ship on her ribs, a smattering of etchings that would dull its conspicuousness. By the time she was twenty-two, Helene already had a reputation for body art. Her friends love to guess which one her soul mark actually is. She never tells them. They never guess right. Helene has somehow become a great illusionist of her soulmate’s greatest passion.

But it comes up, sometimes. “It’s a bit large, isn’t it”, Laia said to her once, “I mean, I suppose the crossed swords are majestic but did you really have to get it across your whole back?”

“It’s so her enemies can fear her even when she has her back turned to them”, Keenan supplied, and Helene just frowned at the both of them.

Helene worries about her meeting with the love of her life. Whoever it must be, she hopes he or she would have nice, daunting swords. She doesn’t want a couple of golden, dress swords glinting on her back for the rest of her life. Neither does she want to love someone who uses them. Laia and Keenan bicker about their marks to this day—Laia claims that Keenan’s shepherd’s pie looks like a burn on her brown skin. And Keenan says a band of pink lace on his pale arm feels ‘unmanly’.

Laia’s brother Darin likes to joke that Helene’s soulmate would have a dog on their chest – since she loved dogs. Helene doesn’t even think her soulmate would mind. She really does love dogs.

She also loves her home. And her mother. And music. And apple pies. None of them are her passion. She tried to decide on one—maybe she wants to fight too, or care for orphaned children, or serve the realm. She even tried to come up with actionable passions—she fights with passion. Protects the innocent with a passion.

By the time she was introduced to the celebrity of the bastard Prince Elias, she _hated_ him with a passion. _I pity his soulmate_ , Livia had said in her ear as they’d watched him go up and down the row of knights roaring about competitive jousting in the yard.

The jagged crown stood out vivid against the skin of his arm. The whole country thinks he will marry a princess from the cold north.

They touch each other for the first time when he holds a knife to her throat.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> safe to say none of this is in character lol

“Your highness!”

“Rebels”, he spits at her, “sent a girl to do their dirty deeds.”

Helene tries to object—the prince digs his arm harder against her throat.

“You think you can best me, _girl_? I am the heir apparent, the next _king_ —”

“— _Please_ , your highness”, Livia cries, “she’s my _sister_.”

“Then you are a traitor as well!”

“What in _god’s_ name are you doing?” comes Princess Rebekah’s voice from the door.

“Fear not, aunt. This rebel was here to assault you and I apprehended her.”

“She’s my _aide_ , Elias!” Princess Rebekah cries, “Let. Her. _Go_.”

Helene is too sore and offended to say anything to the prince, who doesn’t try to apologise. Princess Rebekah snaps at him to leave, then asks Livia to get Helene a hot cloth for her neck. Helene was to set out for home that very evening to see her mother and Hannah but is ordered to rest and start tomorrow morning instead.

Which turned out to be a good thing, else the prince wouldn’t have been able to kick Princess Rebekah’s door down the next day, looking for his supposed soulmate.

The moment Helene sees the grey, metallic crown stare at her with its dark blue bejewelling, she knows her worst fear has come true. She is going to live the rest of her life with two golden, glinting swords on her back, probably encrusted with rubies and sapphires to boot. _I would take a shepherd’s pie any day_ , she thinks miserably to herself before the prince’s booming voice pierces her brain.

“—I don’t understand, why would _her_ soul mark be a _crown_?” the prince is wailing to his men, while Helene tries to focus on something other than the end of her life. She feels a hand snake up her back and slaps Livia away for the third time.

“I just want to see it!”, she whispers, under the cover of the prince’s caterwauling, “The swords! They’re the only thing left!”

“No, they’re not. There’s the ship. And the tribal band.”

“He’s never been on a ship”, she hissed, “and that band is from the _eastern tribes_.”

Helene sighs, feeling exhausted with her life already. _It’s going to have diamonds in it_ , her sinking heart cries.

“Girl”, one of the prince’s men says, looking at Helene, “what’s your name?”

“Helene, sir”, she replies without rancour, “Helene Aquilla.”

A gasp sounds from behind the men, who turn to find Princess Rebekah with her hands over her mouth. “Gods be good”, she cries, “It’s really you. _Helly_.”


	3. III

The story goes something like this.

Once upon a time, a merchant’s daughter girl helped a young princess up a carriage and found her soul mark, a stack of books, filled with the colouring of rich, crimson and taupe leather. The girl and her sister knew that the princess’s father – the king – would never allow the union. So the girl did nothing, kept on living her life and serving the castle.

Then one day, the princess, sporting a mark of azure blue waves lapping on her shoulder bone, found the girl out and asked her to live in the castle with the royal family. The girl was nervous but agreed when her sister threatened to kick her out of their home. The two were besotted in a fortnight, but the king and queen weren’t ready to give her daughter to a poor woman like the servant girl.

Intent on keeping them apart, the king sent his daughter—his youngest child—with her brother Henry, the heir apparent, to the war front. The insurgents had tried to take hold of villages along the Borderlands, and the king’s armies fought hard and struggled to keep the attacks at bay. The princess, split between duty to the realm and her love for her soulmate, stayed to help her brother but kept coming back to see her beloved. On her birthday, on the New Year’s festival. The servant girl asked to go with her every time she visited, but the princess was firm—the war-front was a dangerous place.

And she was right. For she did not return a third time.


End file.
